Month: April 2019

It’s hard to believe that after tonight’s “Super Tuesday”, there are only two episodes ever left of Veep. Not only because I really can’t imagine a world without a show as hilarious, witty, poignant and take-no-prisoners as it is, but also because, well, it doesn’t feel as if much as happened this season. It’s mostly been business as usual for the show and its vast array of incompetent bureaucrat characters and other than some maneuvering and position it doesn’t seem like the season has really accomplished that much, despite the fact that something like a year has probably passed between the season premiere, where Selina Meyer announces her campaign, and this episode, as Super Tuesdays usually happen early in the spring.

I don’t know if that’s necessarily a criticism as I like spending time with these characters and I don’t think it’s ever been the case that I haven’t laughed hysterically at a given episode of the show, but it’s just remarkable to fathom. In a way, though, the slow-turning wheels of the American political system is kind of this show’s motto.

What’s more, I actually feel like I finally got a glimpse of what this show’s endgame might be like, and funny enough that glimpse came in the episode’s C-story. Richard Splett started the season working for both the Ryan and Meyer campaigns, left both to randomly become mayor of some hick town in Iowa, and ended this episode as the Lieutenant governor of the state after accidentally outing a bunch of corruption. I can totally see a world where Richard somehow winds up becoming president by accident. He’s secretly the smartest character on this show, he’s genuine and earnest, which is what people say they want out of a presidential candidate, and with Dan at his side it feels like almost the perfect compromise for a show where the thesis statement has always been about how terrible everyone in politics truly is.

And after all, making Selina president seems too obvious and too good a fate for that character, and even this show can’t be so cynical as to make Jonah fucking Ryan president In fact the show seems to be setting both of them up for big falls, as Selina’s arc in this episode went from trying to hide her ex-husband’s embezzlement to trying to ignore the that she accidentally had the Chinese kill Andrew. And as for Jonah, well, they keep digging and ever-deepening hole of depravity for him, as it’s revealed that Beth is actually his half-sister and not just his stepsister, not to mention pregnant with their inbred child.

Veep is cynical and unrelenting, but it would be a hell of a twist for it to end in a semi-positive place with someone like Richard Splett as the new president. But with only two episodes left I’m sure we’re in for plenty of surprises.

Brutal Takedown of the Week: Last week, I dedicated the brutal takedown of the week to what might be the final Jeff Kane appearance as Peter MacNicol returned to deliver some doozies. I’d be remiss if I didn’t offer the same reverence this week to Dan Bakkendahl’s Roger Furlong, arguably an even better ringer for Veep than MacNicol has been. Furlong already made a brief appearance earlier in the season, but it’s in this episode he gets to shine, delivering no fewer than four great lines as well as setting up his trusty sad sack aide Will (Nelson Franklin) for a vicarious fifth (not to mention how both he and Amy slam Jonah by referring to him as “Congressman Slender Man”):

Furlong: “Holy shit, Bruckheimer, when you get an abortion you’re supposed to leave the mangled fetus at the clinic, not staple it to the skeleton of a gay condor and run it for president.”

Furlong to Beth: “What Saudi prince’s rape dongeon did you finger-trolley your way out of?”

Furlong: “Chances are you’ll still get assassinated but the killer – may god guide his hand – will just have to work a little harder.”

Furlong: “Have a good weepy slide down the shower wall this evening.”

Will/Furlong: “Well I was hoping to finish my passion project.” “Which is?” “Rerouting my urethra to the back of my balls so that I have to sit to pee like a real girl.”

Best of the Rest:

Selina wants to leak some of her death threats, like “someone should put a bullet in your shriveled old face.” “No, just make up some death threats that are nice.”

Marjorie/Selina/Gary: “This is the face of clinical depression.” “With the hair of a mental patient.” “My kingdom for her beret.”

Selina: “Well this has been a dry fuck on a sandy beach.”

Selina: “First of all call, it the Washington post like a non-asshole. And I don’t know anything about foreign interference. And stop staring at my like I’m some sort of teenage runaway that you just strangled.”

Selina: “Just give [the faith money] to one of those gay-converting Baptist colleges to fund a statue of a gold-plated Jesus fucking a triceratops.”

Jonah/Beth: “I told Beth that we would go to Arkansas so she could give me a handjob in a hot spring.” “It’s my birthday.”

Beth/Jonah: “I didn’t get Clay vaccinated because it causes autism. And now he just has a little bit of autism.” “When I was a kid they said best case scenario was I had autism and fucking look at me now.”

Doctor/Dan: “You brought a woman into my clinic to have her pregnancy terminated.” “Could you be a little more specific?” “I’m actually worried she might have a thyroid issue because of her eyes.” “Oh! Amy. Reminds me I gotta Apple Pay her for her half.”

Selina RE Gary: “I don’t think people are gonna buy that a guy who calls vaginas crank em crank ems is gonna be able to pull off some sort of multi million dollar fraud.”

Amy/Jonah/Beth: “Is that what a real orgasm feels like?” “Ugh do women have those?” “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

Selina is to meet “the fake real woman from your speech.” Kent: “Just in the nick of time, she was about to be stoned by the local child army.”

Richard: “That’s hilarious, a talking company. Where would the mouth even be?”

Keith: “Hey now, you’re not a grilled chicken sandwich and a miller light.”

Selina: “When do the new Kent’s come out?”

Kent addressing Mike’s young child: “Chief strategist Kent Davidson, how do you do.”

We’re far enough into Veep‘s final season that discussing how the show has chosen to tackle the trump era of politics is starting to sound like a broken record, but last night’s episode, “South Carolina”, deserves another look from this perspective. The episode veers violently into the kind of cynical politics that have have dominated Washington since 2016 in more ways than one, and more severely than the three previous episodes of the season. In fact, I’ve been struggling with the notion that a transformative trump-like figure could exist in this world. Not because I don’t think that someone so self-serving could exist in the Veep universe, but rather due to the fact that just about everyone in this world is already as self-serving and narcissistic as one donald j trump, and this episode shows just how far some of those people are willing to go to get what they want.

In “South Carolina”, Selina Meyer resorts to several shady-ass tactics in order to keep the momentum of her campaign moving forward. Not only does she come very close to supporting police brutality while giving a speech in a black church (something she likely only backs away from in fear of her own safety), but she publicly declares her support for Chinese expansionism in exchange for a big, murky campaign contribution (as well as meddling in the primary) from that nation. In fact, this goes so far that we even find out that Andy Daly’s mild-mannered campaign manager, who has spent the better part of this season so far cheerfully accepting Selina’s disdain, reveals himself to be a Chinese plant.

We accept this kind of cynicism from the Jonah side of the story, and we get it, as Jonah’s campaign manages to steer even further to the right. He winds up giving a speech denouncing math because it was technically invented by Muslims, decreeing that math teachers are terrorists. The looks of horror on the faces of Bill, Teddy and Amy are priceless. Amy winds up leaning into it, as she ends the episode by transforming herself into ersatz Kellyanne Conway (and it’s glorious). But that’s not all, as this comes after an entire episode of Jonah trying to drop out of the campaign and exchange his endorsement for a cabinet position, a deal no one wants to take, only to find out from his rich uncles that he’s not in the campaign to win it, but instead to gather enough delegates so they can influence policy at the convention and ensure that their prisons remain full of pot smokers (because who wants a private prison with just rapists and murderers?).

Somehow even that manages to stride that line of almost egregious cynicism. But it’s the Selina story that really kind of hits you where it hurts. We know she’ll do whatever it takes to get what she feels is coming to her, so currying the favour of a foreign government probably shouldn’t come as a surprise after all the shady and probably illegal shit we’ve seen her do (it’s even references in every episode prior to this as the show has shined a line on Andrew’s embezzlements). But the way Selina juggles racial politics and foreign election meddling so easily in this episode almost pushes things to far; never mind how she winds up using Dan for sex after he gets her speech balloons just right and then fires him from the campaign.

Between Selina’s despicable behaviour, Jonah diving off the deepest of ends and how seamlessly the show weaves in current events and political issues, this is an all-timer when it comes to Veep’s political cynicism. As this sets up the show’s final arcs, it’ll be curious to see if the show is at all interested in trying to redeem any of these people, or if they’re merely trying to remind us once and for all that they’re all just terrible, hopeless and incorrigible.

Brutal Takedown of the Week: We can’t have an episode with an appearance from Jeff Kane and not highlight Peter MacNicol’s tremendous mastery of the Jonah Ryan takedown. Somehow his character – who only began to appear on the show late in its run, has managed to become one of my favourites with only a handful of appearances. Here he is eviscerating Jonah in one scene (two lines)

Shut the fuck up! When you’re president! I’ll jam my fist up my dickhole and pull out a forty piece danish cutlery set when you’re president.

Selina Meyer is a legitimate candidate, not a human pool skimmer last used to de-spunk a Provincetown hot tub party.

Gary wants a bigger role in the campaign. Selina: “What kind of role was your mother thinking of?” “I don’t know, I thought everybody kinda did the same thing.”

Bill: “I’m going to go hang myself from a sturdy pipe, and I’m not even going to bother jerking off.”

Selina: “You can’t just replace Gary with another lesbian and think I’m not gonna notice.”

Marjorie (w/ Selina) on her tea-making skills: “Thank you ma’am, I learned from an Afghani warlord.” “Why don’t we put him on the payroll?” “You killed him in a drone strike.”

Marjorie RE Gary: “You’ve been taking fashion advice from a man who dresses like an overgrown ventriloquist dummy.”

Kent/Selina: “My polling shows their [non-college educated whites] main wants are jobs education and an adequate safety net…” “Okay, I can speak to that.” “I’m not finished ma’am. To be denied to African Americans.”

Ben/Kent: “Lu sent you a message inside Mike.” “A misfortune cookie.”

Richard: “When my uncle stole me, I don’t remember exactly where he took me but I do have this recurring dream where I almost find out.”

Selina/Ben: “He just fucked me right in the ass.” “Son of a bitch wouldn’t endorse you.” “That too!”

Dan: “You want to blow a dog whistle in a black church? That’s like blowing a rape whistle while you’re raping somebody.”

Selina: “Honeydew? If I want to pretend to be in the CNN green room I would draw a face on Ben’s ass and call it Christiane Amanpour.”

Amy: “I should have aborted myself.”

Jonah at the beginning of the episode: “Math is a plot invented by the Chinese to make smart Americans feel dumb.”

Jonah at the end of the episode: “I just found out from my stupid stepfather-in-law that math was created by Muslims. And we teach this Islamic math to children. Math teachers are terrorists!”

Jonah: “Algebra? More like Al Jazeera”

Teddy: “I may I’m a registered sex offender but I cannot be apart of this.”

Selina: “If we lose it won’t be for a lack of touching people in a Denny’s.”

Selina/Ben: “How’s the turnout.” “Much like my prostate, mostly black and much larger than we’d like.”

Ben/Selina: “I told you you can’t trust the Chinese, I married enough of them to know that.” “Isn’t your wife Korean?” “Maybe. Fog of war?”

Selina/Gary: “Your name will be all over it like Jodie Foster / John Hinkley style.” “Oh my god, I’m obsessed with her.”

As Veep wraps up its run at a time where our contemporary political realities have long surpassed any reasonable semblance of parody, it’s become rather important that Veep at least try and commentate on all of that craziness through its biting, no-punch-pulling lens. Under Armando Iannucci (and during the transitional David Mandel years), this was a show about worthless, lackadaisical beaurocrats running out the clock on a pointless political stepping stone, either on their way to greener pastures or serving penance for past slights. But as it eventually became clear that Selina Meyer was meant for greater things, the show slowly transformed itself, all the while getting more and more ruthless and more and more cynical. Now in its final form, it’s only fitting that Veep embraces the insanity of the current political landscape and translate the current popular versions of things such as white nationalism and misogyny through its own lens of commentary.

The result of that so far this season has mostly bore fruit through the Jonah storyline, as Timothy Simons has long proven to be this show’s ultimate punching bag. Jonah Ryan is stupid, rude, bigoted, ignorant and incompetent, which makes him the perfect poster boy for both this show and its translation of the political landscape, leading to some excellent humour over the course of the last three episodes. But in a surprise twist, by the end of this week’s episode, it’s Selina embracing, at least in part, that mantra, as she breaks down in a debate fumble of her own making and turns it into a resurgent moment as she tells an African-American candidate who can’t stop using her identity as a crutch to “man up,” as she did all the years she had to quietly endure misogyny in order to reach her current status. The people (which, on Veep, share social status with the likes of Jonah Ryan) eat it up and she winds up winning the debate and sinking her political opponents, after the floundering she had to endure over the course of the first two episodes.

It’s an interesting stance for this show to take, tacitly admitting that these steps back are tried and true political maneuvers. Selina is and always has been selfish, her entire existence hinging on the idea that she’s paid her dues and waited her turn to be president, that she’s earned and deserves a run as president. But she’s also always been a bleeding-heart progressive, so for her to quote-unquote turn to the dark side and so easily get a win is as biting a stance for this show to take as anything else it’s ever done. It’s early in the season, and “Pledge” is an admittedly transitional episode that aimed to get Selina from points A and B to C, but I wonder if this is something the show might stick to en route to whatever endgame they have in mind.

But even as a transitional episode, this was as hilarious as the show has been this year, with plenty of material for Selina (I loved her funeral blackball list and kind of wished they mined it for a few more jokes), a great Jonah subplot with a lot of visual humour (including several unfortunate press pics of him at the fair, him eating two different-sized corndogs, and debating a wizard), Richard succeeding a dog as the mayor of an Iowan town, and the perfect setup for next week as the episode ends with Amy getting a call from Teddy asking her to become Jonah’s campaign manager, a job she enthusiastically (and presumably ironically) accepts, likely in order to fuck with Jonah.

And speaking of Amy, she had what’s likely to stand as the most brutal piece of dialog of the season, so without further adieu, let’s get to this week’s best lines from “Pledge”!

Brutal Takedown of the week: Listen, I have shit to do, I can’t copy down every single line of dialog from this show. But I couldn’t help but do it for this epic takedown from Amy, trying to enter an abortion clinic in Iowa facing down a bunch of protesters. I pretty much can’t think of a better way to react in that situation, and from now on this should be the go-to in the abortion debate

You want me to think about the children, you hog fingering fucks? Well I did I think about this, and I cried and, yeah suck my cock, I prayed a little. And here I am! So you can back the fuck off, you hypocritical cunts, before i show up to the piss puddle that is your house and protest your husband wacking it to your daughter’s seventh grade yearbook. That sign’s misspelt.

Selina: “It sounds like Dr. Seuss fucked Maya Angelou in the yasmatazz and then filled her all up with snoozeliscuzz.”

Selina: “Last thing I need is my picture being taken eating dick-shaped food. I’d rather eat a food-shaped dick.”

Richard: “My uncle was a shop steward for the 7-4. Asbestos killed him. Asbestor was the name of their pit bull.”

Jonah: “I’m Jonah Ryan and I wanna suck this message’s hot clam.”

Teddy/Jonah: “We focus tested the ad and most people are uncomfortable watching a white man kick a black woman in the vagina.” “Well I don’t see vagina colour.”

Richard: “On the plus column the undecard debate will be first, which means we’ll have no problem getting out of the parking lot. Oh no, that’s bad news too, it’s stacked parking.”

Teddy/Jonah: “You can’t say retarded in front of a reporter.” “Why, was he retarded?”

Mike: “Ever since i got it they stopped calling me old guy. Now it’s hat guy.” “It’s fat guy.”

Selina: “Look at you! You got chocolate all over your face like a child, but you’re an adult!”

Last week’s season premiere of Veep was all about proving that the long-running HBO satire still had a place in the discourse on American politics. Could it be as biting and brutal as it was for its first six seasons, especially after nearly two years off the air?

The answer was an unsurprising and resounding yes, but it was nice to get confirmation that the show wouldn’t spend its final episodes on some sort of tame farewell tour. And while the season’s second episode, “Discovery Weekend”, was probably a little laid back in comparison, the show and its cavalcade of assholes were still firing on most cylinders this week, delivering vicious lines and takedowns on topics including but not limited to the #MeToo movement, women in presidential politics, the (gay) money behind said presidential politics, somehow bulimia, and a lot more.

The episode sees Selina and the campaign visit a major political donor’s weekend getaway where he is set to announce his backing of a single Democratic candidate. That donor is Felix Wade (played by the great William Fitchner), a political power player whose sexual preferences are the worst kept secret in politics (which doesn’t stop Selina from putting her foot in her mouth and accidentally outing him to an unwitting Mike; whose habitual and often forgotten presence now that he’s no longer in the campaign is quickly becoming one of my favourite things about this season) and who has decided to back Selina. Problem is that Tom James (Hugh Laurie) decides to stick his apparently gigantic penis where it doesn’t belong, renewing one of the show’s best will-they-won’t-they love/hate dynamics between him ans Selina. Tom complicates matters by telling Selina he legitimately loves her right before she’s set to deliver a speech that would guarantee her Felix’s money, causing her to stumble and lose ground. He also gets caught by Amy fooling around with his new Amy (the brilliantly cast Rhea Seahorn, who may as well be a clone of Anna Chlumsky’s).

So Selina and the gang spend most of the episode trying to stop Felix from falling too far in love with Tom, all while trying to do something “disruptive” to get his attention, which incidentally leaves them in the dust when Selina introduces Felix to a multiracial senator who Felix winds up back and who Selina describes as her protege (and therefore a perfect candidate to stab her in the back), leaving us in Veep’s favourite territory; right back where we started.

Meanwhile, the Jonah Ryan campaign is going just as well, as his repeated lies about all the women he’s clearly never gone out with come back to haunt him. While Teddy and the rest of his staff ponder what he could have done to offend a number of women, it turns out they’ve all banded together to create the wittingly labeled “#NotMe” movement to out Jonah as a liar and prove they’ve never slept with him. It’s a nice play on words with regards to the #MeToo movement and also bad news for Jonah, seeing as the trump card (I hate myself for that, don’t worry) of his campaign is his misplaced braggadocio.

All of this keeps the wheels moving on the show, but it’s interesting to see things move rather slowly two weeks into this final season. I wonder if we’re going to spend the entire season in the primaries, in order to mimic real life, or if a time jump is in the show’s near future. In any case, that doesn’t stop “Discovery Weekend” from being another great episode, so let’s not waste any more time. Below you’ll find all the great, brutal lines from this week’s episode:

In this endless onslaught of sociopolitical turmoil, it’s kind of crazy realize we’ve gone almost two full years without a season of Veep. The last time HBO’s biting political sitcom was on the air, we were only a few months into the trump administration. When season 6 premiered, we were still talking about the travel ban and the administration’s ceaseless attempts to strip Americans of their right to healthcare. We had barely heard of the name “Robert Mueller” and only had vague suspicions of Russian election interference. In retrospect, those were much simpler times. Perhaps the show and its writers felt the same, as the biggest criticism against season 6 was probably that it felt like it didn’t belong. Some attributed it to the show’s age, or how far passed its original premise it had gone, but it’s quite possible that it was because the show didn’t have any relevance or identity as a pre-trump show living in a post-trump world. I’ll defend season 6 as being as funny as any season that came before it, but I’m willing to admit that perhaps its timing and its insistence on being more about an oblivious, out-of-touch ex-president rather than anything more biting was probably detrimental to how it would be remembered.

And that may be one of the reasons why it took showrunner David Mandel and his crew almost a full two years to prepare this, the seventh and final season. This is a show that was birthed from the cynicism of Obama-era obstructionist politics, a show that took as much inspiration from the then sitting VP Joe Biden as it did from its British predecessor, The Thick Of It. Those were much simpler times, where the ineffectual nature of politics could actually be mined for humour. Things are a lot more complicated now. A lot more sinister. And it’s not like the show could simply cast Alec Baldwin or Tony Atamanuik to play trump, this is a fictional world, deviated from the actual politics of the 21st century. Portraying the post-trump world without donald trump likely proved to be a much harder nut to crack.

With this past week’s season 7 premiere, “Iowa”, it’s probably safe to say that the show found where it had stored its nut cracker, because that biting commentary, that brutal take-no-prisoners attitude of the show was out and swinging with a fantastic episode. An episode that in no way forgets Veep’s roots as being about a terrible, selfish politician and the terrible selfish people around her, while still finding the perfect moments to crack the whip in the direction of white nationalism and gun culture.

The episode centers largely around Selina’s repeated failed attempts to announce her presidential campaign. She arrives at the wrong Iowan airport, she’s stalled by multiple mass shootings, she’s stonewalled by unpaid contractors and her staff’s failures. And when she does finally announce, her declaration is overshadowed by the shitshow that is Jonah Ryan’s literally incestuous campaign, which, it turns out, people find more raw and appealing than a business-as-usual Selina Meyer running once again for president.

The episode established that, in its final season, Veep will not cease to be a show about terrible people insulting each other terribly for being bad at their jobs. It’s almost like it’s going through an existential crisis, as Selina constantly laments the ineffective nature of her staff all while making the exact same mistakes they try to warn her about. And yet, it’s also a show that rips apart the debate around mass shootings, purposely never taking an actual stance on the matter and playing into the ridiculous nature of the “thoughts and prayers” response (to the point where Selina slapdashedly tries to rebrand it as “mindfulness and meditations” instead of actually trying to say something substantive, only doing so absentmindedly when questioned by Mike, whom she forgets no longer works for her. The way the episode tackles the politicization of mass shootings is absolutely brutal and hilarious, as is what they set up with Jonah Ryan playing the post-trump candidate. I hope this isn’t insulting towards Timothy Simons, because he’s really good as playing a disgusting, gargantuan monster who you can totally believe is the rallying call of the alt-right (and yet “alt-right” and “white nationalism” are terms that aren’t uttered in this episode, and likely never will be over the course of the season, because this show is truly that brilliant when it comes to subtext).

In other words, this is a great episode that feels like it earned its two year break. It feels like it’s cemented its place in the modern political conversation, despite arguably feeling out of touch the last time we saw it, and without losing sight of what got it here. It seems like it’s adapted perfectly, all while managing a huge, talented cast where there still is a lead that’s head-and-shoulders above all the rest; and as you’ll see below, that lead manages to steal the show despite the ever-growing cast that not only brings back pretty much everyone from previous seasons and adds the incomparable Andy Daly as Selina’s accidental new campaign manager.

“Iowa” proves that Veep’s still got it, and with nothing left to hold back, this final season is shaping up to be one hell of a ride.

Below are my favourite lines from the episode, be sure to check back weekly for the rest of the season!

Selina: “I’m not sure about the part where I say I want to be president for all Americans. I mean, do I? All of them?”

Selina: “If Mohammed Atta had you people booking his travel he’d still be alive today. Which from his perspective would be a massive fuckup.”

Dan/Selina: “FYI we’re tracking a school shooting in Spokane, Washington.” “Muslim or white guy? Which one’s better for me?”

Amy/Selina: “First of all, there was a reluctance on the part of the candidate to take responsibility for mistakes.” “What, no, you were the one who made mistakes.” “Second, there was a culture of blame which made people feel unsafe expressing criticisms.” “What dumb asshole said that?”

Selina: “How about I write 500 pages on how you need to start wearing concealer?”

Selina (escaping Marjorie): “I just had to get away from Blue is the Most Annoying Color.”

Selina/Amy: “Amy, why would you want to be president?” “So I could nuke America.”

Teddy/Bill: “How did this not come up?” “The same reason it didn’t come up that he moisturizes with Minotaur semen, it’s not one of the standard questions!”

Kent: “Google always filters out my emails, they think I’m a bot.”

Selina/Ben: “I really thought my 50s would be about sucking and fucking my way through the Shorestein Center.” “You and me both, ma’am.”

Amy: “I don’t want people to think I was going for Megan Egan because that sounds like someone who gets assfucked on the Major Deegan in a limerick.”

Selina: “I was a gamechanger, I took a dump on the glass ceiling and I shaved my muff in the sink of the old boys club.”

Ben: “technically it’s more of a goat rape than a clusterfuck.”

Jonah: “It’s exactly what Woody Allen did. I’m clearly no more of a pervert than he is.”